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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Prosecutors opened their case Monday against 12 men accused of belonging to a terror network suspected in the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and plots to attack prominent Dutch politicians. The defendants, mostly young Muslims of North African ancestry, were arrested within days of Van Gogh's death on Nov. 2 - a killing that shocked the nation and triggered retaliatory attacks on Islamic sites. Van Gogh, a distant relative of painter Vincent Van Gogh, was shot and stabbed on a busy Amsterdam street. The killer cut his throat and, in a note pinned to the...

The man accused of killing Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh confessed to a Dutch court that he acted out of his religious beliefs, saying he would do "exactly the same" if he were ever set free. "I take complete responsibility for my actions. I acted purely in the name of my religion," 27-year-old Dutch-Moroccan national Mohammed Bouyeri told the court in Amsterdam on the final day of his trial. Prosecutor Frits van Straelen demanded a life sentence for Bouyeri for killing Van Gogh on an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004. He recalled the particular brutality of the murder in...

An ultra-radical Islamic ideology mixing zealot-like devotion and holy war creed is drawing more scrutiny in anti-terrorist probes from the Middle East to Europe — with increasing indications that its base on the fringes of Islamic extremism could be widening. In existence since the 1960s, al-Takfir wa al-Hijra has offered intellectual inspiration to al-Qaida and other militant groups. But authorities now worry about followers becoming more aggressive with recruitment and retaliation against perceived foes of Islam, such as Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Officials in the Netherlands say the Dutch-Moroccan suspect — accused of killing Van Gogh on a busy...